Can You Remove Microplastics From Your Blood? The Evidence

What clinics are offering, and for how much

Two procedures are being sold, and they are not the same thing. In therapeutic plasma exchange, a machine separates your plasma (the liquid part of blood) from your cells, discards the plasma and returns your cells with a replacement fluid, usually albumin. In plasma filtering or adsorption, your plasma passes through a filter or a column and goes back into you, minus whatever stuck. Hospitals use both for specific diseases, such as some autoimmune nerve conditions or very high lipoprotein levels. Microplastic removal is not one of those uses.

Clarify Clinics in London was offering its “Clari” procedure by early 2025. ITV News reported a two-hour session costing nearly £10,000, not covered by the NHS, with a company claim of removing 90 to 99% of microplastics and a suggestion it may need repeating every year (ITV, March 2025). The only before-and-after data in that report were the chief executive’s own: 500 particles per millilitre before, 50 after. A GP quoted in the piece said she would not advise patients to have it without evidence. Actor Orlando Bloom’s 2025 Instagram post from the clinic was widely covered, and Dazed later reported that he had used it (Dazed, October 2025).

Clarify’s own site now describes Clari as plasma adsorption through a CE-marked column called the Marker MTx.100. It says the procedure removes particles “greater than 5 microns”, that its device is not FDA-approved, and that its removal charts come from bench tests. It lists no price (Clarify Clinics, accessed November 13, 2026). The 5-micron line matters: smaller particles, including nanoplastics, fall outside that claim.

In the US, Circulate Health offers plasma exchange at affiliated longevity clinics. E&E News reported a price of about $5,000 to $8,000 per procedure in May 2026 (E&E News). Circulate also ran the largest study so far, covered below.

The 2025 Brain Medicine paper: what it did and did not show

The paper most often cited for “apheresis removes microplastics” is a two-page report by Stefan Bornstein, Charlotte Steenblock and colleagues at TU Dresden, published in Brain Medicine on May 20, 2025 (Bornstein et al., 2025). Its 21 patients had ME/CFS and received at least two rounds of double-filtration apheresis for that condition.

The team did not measure patients’ blood before and after. They analysed the fluid trapped by the filter (the eluate) using infrared spectroscopy and compared it with rinse fluid run through a clean filter. Fourteen substances appeared only in patient eluates, with spectra that resembled nylon 6 (polyamide) and a polyurethane. The authors are clear about the limits: the method “does not quantitatively measure” particles, and the polyamide signal could partly come from proteins, which share the same chemical bonds. They call the material “MNP-like” and ask for larger studies with quantitative methods. Three authors work at a German center that sells this apheresis.

That is a fair hypothesis paper. It suggests filters catch something plastic-like. It does not say how much, whether blood levels fell, or whether anyone benefited. A companion commentary in the same journal noted how scarce removal evidence is overall (Fabiano, Luu and Puder, 2025).

The 2026 before-and-after studies

Journal of Clinical Apheresis, June 2026. Researchers mostly affiliated with Circulate Health measured microplastics in the blood of 114 patients before and after 174 single-plasma-volume plasma exchanges (Weinstein et al., abstract). The abstract says plasma exchange reduced circulating particles, but that the reduction was obscured at low starting levels because particles leached back in from the plastic tubing set. The company’s release gives the headline number: among patients starting at 30 or more particles per 100 microlitres, the average fell from 52.2 to 21.1, using a commercial microscopy-based assay called PlasticTox on 100-microlitre samples (Circulate Health, May 2026). The release does not say how many patients were in that high group.

This is a peer-reviewed paper and a real signal. It is also a single-arm study by the company selling the treatment, with samples taken around one session, and an assay whose validation we could not find published. The authors themselves say it does not show that removing particles improves health.

Brain Health, August 2026. The Dresden group followed patients having lipoprotein apheresis for cholesterol that drugs could not control (Bornstein et al., 2026). PFAS chemicals fell by up to 25% after a session in 14 patients. The microplastic results were mixed. In four patients tested by pyrolysis GC/MS, polyethylene fell in all four and PVC in three, but polypropylene rose in two and polystyrene rose in one. A particle-staining method in four other patients showed about a 70% average drop that was not statistically significant and does not confirm the particles were plastic (TU Dresden release). Bornstein said the result does not yet mean the body is rid of them.

Why a lower blood reading is not the same as removal

Blood is a moving river, not a storage tank. Particles found in blood are, at best, a snapshot of what is circulating at that moment. The Dresden authors point out that tissue may hold particles that can move back into the bloodstream later. No study has measured whether repeated sessions lower the amount in organs, or whether a blood reading taken weeks later stays down.

There is also no comparison group in any of these studies. Without one, you cannot tell how much a reading would drift between two blood draws anyway, from sampling, lab variation or the day’s exposure. And the equipment is plastic. The clearest finding of the largest study may be that the treatment can put particles in as well as take them out.

What a convincing study would need

None of this means the idea is wrong. Filtering plasma does remove things that circulate in it, which is why hospitals use it for certain diseases and why the PFAS readings in the Dresden patients fell. The question is whether it works for plastic particles in a way that matters. Both research groups list similar next steps, and they are a useful checklist for judging any new claim:

• A comparison group. People who have blood drawn on the same schedule without treatment, or a sham procedure, so normal drift can be measured.
• Blanks for the kit itself. Running clean fluid through the same tubing, bags and filters to count what the equipment adds.
• A validated assay. A published method with stated size limits, polymer identification and checks against fats and proteins.
• Follow-up weeks or months later. To see whether readings rebound as particles move out of tissue.
• Health endpoints. Blood pressure, inflammation, symptoms or events, measured before anyone claims a benefit.

Until a study ticks most of those boxes, a lower number after a session is an interesting observation, not a treatment result. That is also roughly how the authors of the 2026 papers describe their own work.

Can blood microplastic tests be trusted?

Every before-and-after claim rests on the test. The first peer-reviewed blood study, in 2022, found measurable plastic in 17 of 22 healthy donors, averaging 1.6 micrograms per millilitre in positive samples (Leslie et al., 2022). Our guide to that study explains what it can and cannot say.

Since then, an Australian team tried to validate pyrolysis GC/MS for blood and concluded it is not currently suitable for polyethylene and PVC, likely because fats in blood produce similar breakdown fragments (Rauert et al., 2025). That matters here, because polyethylene and PVC are the polymers that fell most in the Dresden data. Microscopy counts, which the US study used, raise different questions: what size cutoff was used, how plastic was told apart from other particles, and what blanks were run.

Units do not convert either. Micrograms per millilitre (mass), particles per millilitre and particles per 100 microlitres (counts) cannot be compared across studies. The October 2026 test of 28 public figures ran into the same problems, which we cover in what the celebrity blood test shows. For lab methods in general, see what a microplastic lab can actually measure.

Does donating blood or plasma remove microplastics?

There is no microplastics study of donation. The trial behind the “donate blood to detox” headlines was about PFAS, the “forever chemicals”, which are molecules that bind to blood proteins, not plastic particles.

In that 2022 randomized trial, 285 Australian firefighters with elevated PFOS were split into three groups for 12 months: plasma donation every six weeks, whole-blood donation every 12 weeks, or no donation (Gasiorowski et al., 2022). From a starting average of about 11.1 ng/mL, PFOS fell by 2.9 ng/mL in the plasma group and 1.1 ng/mL in the blood group, and did not change in the observation group. Only plasma donation lowered PFHxS. The trial did not study health outcomes, and almost all participants were men. If you want the chemistry difference spelled out, our microplastics vs PFAS vs BPA explainer covers it.

It is a well-designed trial and a fair answer for PFAS in a highly exposed group. It tells us nothing about plastic particles, and donated blood and plasma go to patients. Blood services set their own eligibility rules; donate because you are eligible and want to give, not as a treatment.

Risks of apheresis and plasma exchange

Apheresis is generally well tolerated in hospital use, but it is not a spa treatment. The World Apheresis Association registry, covering about 104,000 procedures of several types, recorded adverse events in roughly 2.3% of procedures by 2018 (down from about 11% in 2003), with severe events in about 0.1% (Stegmayr et al., 2021). Low blood pressure was the most common severe event. One death possibly linked to the procedure was recorded, in an elderly, severely ill patient.

Commonly described side effects include dizziness or low blood pressure, tingling from the citrate anticoagulant, and bruising or problems at the needle or catheter site. Clarify’s own FAQ mentions fatigue, headache or body aches lasting from a day to a week. Plasma exchange also removes useful proteins along with the plasma; Clarify markets its adsorption column partly on the claim that it does not remove antibodies or clotting factors. Those trade-offs are worth discussing with a doctor who is not selling the procedure.

What to do if you are considering it

• Talk to your own doctor first. Bring the clinic’s written claims and ask whether apheresis is suitable for you at all, given your health and medicines.
• Ask the clinic five questions. Which test do you use and is its method published? What particle sizes does it see? Do you run blanks for your own tubing? What happens to my level after a month? What is the published evidence of a health benefit?
• Treat a lower number as a reading, not a cure. A single post-session blood test cannot show what is in your tissues.
• Spend effort where the evidence is simpler. Reducing heated plastic food contact and choosing sensible water filtration change what you take in, even though no one can yet measure the effect in your blood. Our evidence-based detox guide lists practical swaps, and can you sweat out microplastics covers saunas.

For context on how long particles seem to persist, see how long microplastics stay in your body. The FDA’s current view is that the evidence does not show that the microplastic levels found in foods pose a risk to human health, while research gaps remain (FDA).

Use the App

Start with what goes in, not what comes out

Scan the containers, bottles and packaging you use every day to see which plastics they are made from. The app does not measure plastic in your blood or recommend any medical procedure.